/pe'troh brooh"zheuhn, -sheuhn/ , n.
a member of a 12th-century sect in S France that rejected the Mass, infant baptism, prayers for the dead, sacerdotalism, the veneration of the cross, and the building of churches.
[ 1550-60; petrobrusianus, named after Petrus Brusius Pierre de Bruys, 12th-century Frenchman who founded the sect; see -AN ]